“Stop making excuses for me.”Keep making excuses for me.
His gaze doesn’t waver, but something shifts in his eyes.
Recognition.
Like he gets why I want him to be mad at me. Like he understands that it’s easier to keep people at arms’ length and only let them so far in.
Laney and Emma? My mom? Grandpa?
They’rein.
Emma not talking to me is horrific. I’m hiding from facing it, but it is. It’s bad on alosing my grandmalevel, and it reminds me of every relationship I’ve ever seen go south.
Which is alotof relationships.
I’m feeling that thing with Emma that I’ve shielded myself from, and having Grey forgive me right now almost makes me feel like Emma’s forgiven me.
Like I’m still worthy of being someone’s friend.
Or more.
Like it could be okay, even knowing the pain that’s come from my friendship with Emma being up in the air.
“Who told you that you have to be perfect?” All of his intense focus is trained on me, his eyes flicking over my face like he’s taking stock of how every teeny tiny muscle is reacting to the question.
“Me,” I whisper. “Perfect is—”
“Safest.”
“Yes.” I blink and pull back. “No.No. Laney’s the perfect one. The safe one. I’m the gossip. I don’t have to do anything right. I just have to know—”
“How touseit all right,” he finishes for me.
Nailing it.
Again.
He shifts, and I realize he’s been moving this whole time without me noticing it.
And now he has me trapped between his two long, solid arms, my back to the prep table, him leaning into my bubble, andoh my latte, this.
“My parents blamed me forexistingfor my entire life,” he says quietly, no hiding, no blinking, no hesitation. “I was the accident. The highest-maintenance. The one who wasn’t supposed to disrupt their lives. So I made myself as small as I could be. But fuck that. We get to exist. We get to make mistakes. We get to be wrong. Even when we know we’re being wrong. We’rehuman. And right now, I want to make another very big mistake with you.”
13
Grey
Bad idea.
Bad, bad idea.
I should not want to kiss Sabrina right now. I shouldn’t be trapping her against the table. I shouldn’t be telling her any damn thing at all about my life.
But it’s so damn good to see her. Tofeelher. To breathe in the coffee-and-soap scent of her and watch her bright eyes study me while her lids lower and her breathing comes faster and she darts that quick pink tongue out to lick her lower lip.
“Mistakes hurt,” she breathes.
“You don’t date.”
